'99 has its priorities | GCN

Jan 11, 1999

At this writing, Washington is in a paroxysm of worry over politics. But for most people, whats been happening on Capitol Hill is more a cause for watercooler bickering than concern over the future of the republic. We all have work to do.

For federal information technology managers, 1999 will have several themes.

First of all, youll have a professional life beyond year 2000 fixes. Speculation last year had it that date code work would occupy agencies IT activities to the exclusion of all else. Thats mostly been untrue. In the last two weeks of 1998 alone, the IRS and the General Services Administration awarded multibillion dollar contracts that have nothingor very littleto do with year 2000.

A priority for many agencies will be, not surprisingly, electronic commerce.

Federal agencies should look to state counterparts such as Texas, which wants to extend its EC project beyond online ordering to cover financial and accounting components of transactions. Thats a complicated job, but its a crucial step in making electronic commerce a reality.

You should also expect to deal with two continuing topics: the IT talent drain, and data security and privacy.

The ongoing depletion of the IT ranks may slow a bit as the economy cools, but that wont change the fact that the bureaucracy has suffered a knowledge loss. And make no mistake, you cannot outsource your way out of this dilemma.

As to security and privacy, government systems remain seriously unprotected. A recent

Privacy is about to burst onto the scene as a big political issue as it dawns on citizens that public and private entities have amassed enormous amounts of personal information. Expect it to become an oversight matter if your agency maintains databases of information about citizens.

Oh, and lets not forget: Everything you do will occur against the backdrop of a dynamic technology environment and a nearly endless choice of new products.

Turmoil may prevail at the top, but dont let it distract you from the important work at hand.